V. I. Lenin

Main Propositions Of The Decree On Food 
      Dictatorship[1]

Written:8 May, 1918First Published:1931 in Lenin Miscellany XVIII Published according to the manuscriptSource:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th English Edition,
    Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, pages 356-357Translated:Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert DaglishTranscription/HTML Markup:David Walters & Robert
    CymbalaOnline Version:Lenin Internet
    ArchiveMarch, 2002

The draft decision to be revised in the following way:

1) delete the references to the international situation;

2) insert that after peace with the Ukraine we shall be left with only just enough grain to save us from famine;

3) insert that decisions of the dictator will be checked by his
      collegium, which has the right, without holding up
      implementation, to appeal to the Council of People's Commissars;

4) insert that decisions which by their nature are connected
      with the Commissariat for Ways of Communication or the Supreme
      Economic Council are to be adopted by consultation with the
      appropriate departments;

5) give a more precise legal formulation of the rights of the
      Commissar for Food;

6) emphasise more strongly the basic idea of the necessity, for
      salvation from famine, of conducting and carrying through a
      ruthless and terrorist struggle and war against peasant or other
      bourgeois elements who retain surplus grain for themselves;

7) lay down precisely that owners of grain who possess surplus
      grain and do not send it to the depots and places of grain
      collection will be declared enemies of the people and will be
      subject to imprisonment for a term of not less than ten years,
      confiscation of all their property and expulsion for ever from
      the community;

8) insert an addition on the duty of working peasants who are
      propertyless and do not possess surpluses to join forces for
      ruthless struggle against the kulaks;

9) define precisely the relation of the delegate committees to
      the gubernia food committees and the rights and duties of the
      former in carrying out food work.

[1]Lenin’s proposals werw endorse at a meeting of the Council
      of People’s Commissars on May 8, 1918, during the
      discussion on the report of the People’s Commissar for
      Food A. D. Tsyurupa and on the decree granting the Commissar
      emergency powers. The document is an instruction to the
      commission set up by the Council of People’s Commissars to
      revise decree submitted by the People’s Commissariat for
      Food Granting emergency powers.

Based on Lenin’s propositions, the devree was approved on
      May 9, 1918 by the Council of People’s Commissars, and on
      May 13, by the All-Russia C.E.C. It was published on May 14, inIzvestia VTsIKNo. 94 (seeDecrees of the Soviet
      Government,Russian edition, Volume 2, 1959, pages
      261-266).